In order to remove picked cotton from a spindle, cotton harvester units commonly include adjustable doffer columns having a plurality of doffers. The doffer is a disc that is typically coated in rubber or urethane and rotated to a tangential velocity that is significantly greater than that of the spindle. As the spindle is moved under the face of the doffer, cotton is unwrapped and stripped off of the spindle. Due to the abrasiveness of cotton fibers, the doffer coating erodes. Since the effectiveness of the doffer is a function of doffer to spindle clearance, the doffer must be regularly adjusted to compensate for doffer pad wear.
The adjustment is accomplished by two actions. A first action involves rotating a movable threaded bearing housing inside of a fixed threaded mounting component using a wrench. A second action is performed to lock the movable housing in place. For example, Case IH cotton harvesting units currently use a locking strap (U.S. Pat. No. 5,014,502) that is held in place with additional hardware. Whereas, John Deere cotton harvesting units currently use a jam nut, which requires an additional wrench.